anything.
'No,' Giles said, 'I am leaving. And if you, Mr. Bemish, knew the local cuisine well, you wouldn't have ordered a guinea pig burger.'
Kissur spent the rest of the day with Khanadar, the Dried Date, and a couple of close friends in the pubs. Kissur lost twenty thousand in dice and he didn't really drink much, though he did thwack somebody's mug. In the evening, Kissur got in his car and drove to Shavash.
Shavash was in the Cloud Gazebo and he had an Earthman as a visitor. The Earthman had to be a close enough associate because, firstly,
Shavash received him in the gazebo for the Weian guests and, secondly, two beautiful girls were also there. They were more undressed than dressed; one girl sat on the Earthman's knees and another one, breathing zestfully, licked that particular object sticking its bloated head out of Shavash's unzipped pants. Shavash reclined, leaning backward, on the carpet and his jacket and shirt sprawled nearby. The table was filled with appetizers and fruits — the friends had finished the business part were starting to relax.
The Earthman shook the wench off and got up.
'Robert Giles,' Shavash said, 'the IC representative.'
Kissur silently took the Earthman's chair and sat astride it.
'I guess, I should go,' the Earthman said, glancing at the girl regretfully.'
'Go,' Kissur said, 'these girls cost five isheviks per pair next to Trans-Gal, don't be greedy.'
The Earthman left. Shavash pulled the girl on himself, half closing his eyes, and the girl mounted him. Shavash breathed heavily and greedily.
'Lie on your back,' he told the girl. She followed the command obediently.
Kissur waited till Shavash came.
'Why don't you go, bring a jar of Inissa wine,' Kissur told the girls. 'Both of you.'
The girls left the gazebo. Shavash lay on the carpet groping for the shirt with his hand.
'Everybody, like, is running around with this spaceport,' Kissur said, 'and they all run to you.'
'I am the company director.'
'Who was the director before you?'
'A man named Rashar.'
'Hey, wasn't he your secretary? So, at first you sent him to the director's chair, and then to jail.'
'You shouldn't steal,' Shavash replied, 'in busloads.'
'Come on. He would give you away half a busload and you wanted three quarters. You will waste the country, scoundrels.'
Shavash finally buttoned up the shirt and pants, propped himself up and poured a cup of wine.
'Kissur, one little tank trip of yours over the Coke plant cost more to the country than everything I have ever stolen and I will ever steal.'
'Why do you all fret so much about this stupid factory?' Kissur exclaimed. 'And Terence was just yakking about the same thing.' Shavash silently sucked on a straw.
'Whatever. Bemish will buy your company and make you all sweat.'
'He will hardly buy the company,' Shavash said. 'Mr. Bemish often acquires companies but I haven't heard him actually buying a single one.'
'What do you mean?'
'Mr. Bemish is quite a good financier but he made his money the following way. He would buy a company stocks threatening it by a takeover, and then sell the shares back to the company at higher than market price. It's called greenmail. He worked with very small companies in the beginning, then, he switched to the larger ones but, then, they asked him to get out of the civilized countries. He hasn't really broken any laws but they made it clear for him and his boss that they should go out and have fun someplace else.'
'His boss?'
'His LSV boss. Ronald Trevis. Where do you think he got the greenmail money? Trevis raised money for him and Bemish was just a cudgel. Did you see a gentleman named Welsey, next to Bemish? This is Trevis — a morsel of Trevis.'
'I see,' Kissur said.
'LSV is a cool company,' Shavash continued, 'They find people, ready to get out of their own skins and skin the others to scrape together a dinar, a crown and a dollar, and they set them at large companies. They are not financiers — they are gangsters. They would be shot dead on our planet. They were reproached elsewhere and they decided to move to the places with no strict financial laws and a lot of under priced property.'
Shavash was silent and, then, added,
'This rascal bought 7 % of the Assalah shares through the dummy agents and he has been buying them in small blocks for many months to not disturb the market.'
The girls came back with wine and one of them sat on Kissur's knees and other one crawled to Shavash and started to touch him with her hands under the shirt and Shavash laughed and put the wine glass on the table and reclined on his back again.
The next day, the first vice-minister of finance Shavash stood in front of the head of the government, old Mr. Yanik.
Mr. Yanik became first minister a year and a half ago after the death of his predecessor's, a certain Mr. Arfarra. Everybody unanimously considered Yanik to be a nonentity and a temporary replacement. Who cares how to plug a hole as long as it doesn't leak? However, the nonentity clung to his position way longer than many people who thought him to be a temporary incident.
Yanik and Shavash belonged to different generations, and more importantly, to different parties. Shavash occasionally expressed quite loudly his opinion about Yanik while the latter occasionally and quite loudly used the former, as an example to express his regret about the old times when the overly rapacious officials would find themselves hanging on all four palace gates — a quarter per gate.
'Make yourself familiar,' Yanik said, handing Shavash a white plastic folder.
Shavash opened the folder and concentrated on reading.
It was a construction project of a humongous aluminum complex in the east of the Empire, in Tar'Salim, rich in alumina but poor in energy resources. The construction consisted of the aluminum extraction and processing facilities, two power plants — fission and magneto-hydrodynamic ones, and a small plant making composite alloys for gravitonic engines.
The total construction estimated expenditure was two hundred million galactic dinars. The company was naturally state-owned.
Shavash turned the last page and found what he was looking for — the person nominated for the company general director position was Chanakka — the first minister's twice removed grandson, an empty-headed and debased man who had already failed at at least three projects. Cosmopolitan Shavash, with his impeccable knowledge of the major Galactic languages and stylish suits, especially loathed Chanakka's fanatical nationalism.
'This,' the first minister said, 'is an unquestionably important project. No longer will we drag behind the Civilized Worlds. No other planet has such a facility!'
Shavash thought that both Tranar and Dakia had the same facilities. They, however, were not state- owned.
'In two year,' the first minister said, 'we will control the space engines market! Your department has a week to budget seventy million dinars for the primary equipment.'
'We can't do that,' Shavash said coolly.
'Why?'
'We don't have money. The officials in Chakhar haven't been paid since last year.'
Yanik looked at the finance vice-minister disapprovingly. Shavash was too young. Yanik still remembered times when the words 'We don't have money' just didn't carry any meaning in Weian Empire. If money ran out, more of it could always be printed. None of it influenced the prices, since the merchandise prices were determined not by the amount of money in circulation but by the Bill of Prices for goods and services.
